C
cooterhein
Guest
Yeah, that was me.
This is what I’m looking at. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sect
a dissenting or schismatic religious body; especially : one regarded as extreme or heretical
I guess you skipped right over that?
Sects are also denominations, but it’s just as clear that only a certain kind of denomination can be described as a sect. Most Protestant denominations are non-sectarian in nature. I know this to be true, you apparently do not, and now I am telling you.
This is true. When a denomination exists for these reasons, it can be described as a sect- a schismatic or dissenting religious body. Most Protestant denominations do not exist for these reasons.
Sectarianism is not strictly limited to the formation of new denominations, though. There can be sectarianism within a religious body without leading to any formal breaks. There’s plenty of dissension within Catholicism. There’s the Society of St. Pius X, there’s the people who have a slightly irrational hatred for Haugan & Haas, there’s the Thomists that bear some ill will toward certain kinds of Jesuits and vice versa, there’s congruism and syncretism, and on it goes. The Catholic Church has been largely successful in preventing statisticians from enumerating them as any more than one monolithic denomination, but within Catholicism there are factions aplenty. Commonweal Catholics, Garabandal Catholics, Joan Chittister Catholics, Charlie Curran Catholics, Byzantine Catholics, Bruskowitz Catholics, Mahoney Catholics, NO Catholics, TLM Catholics…and while there’s nothing wrong with a bit of variety, it does become problematic when it leads to dissension between Catholics. This doesn’t necessarily happen, but you can’t tell me you don’t ever see it. If you look beyond the non-Catholic sub-forum to any of the other ones on a regular basis, you could probably see it every day.
On that topic, my basic contention is that dissension for any of these types of reasons is a bad thing, whether it means there’s dissension among Protestants or if it means certain Catholics won’t worship together. The mere fact that all Catholics are in submission to the Pontiff does not automatically mean dissension doesn’t happen, or that the same types of dissension seen among both Protestants and Catholics is any less serious just because you’re looking at Catholic dissent rather than Protestant.
Not necessarily. They are anywhere from semi- to fully autonomous in terms of their leadership and (if applicable) whatever hierarchy they have, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have any doctrinal disagreements or any dissension between them at all. According to the usual method of counting Protestant denominations, any church that’s represented in more than one country will count as more than one denomination. The only exception to the rule is (usually) the Catholic Church.
As you check back in with this quickly growing number of Christian denominations (of which a few thousand are actually not Protestant), the quickly growing numbers are more indicative of the fact that all these denominations that were birthed in America are spreading out globally, and every time one of these denominations is represented in a new country, the statisticians count one more Christian denomination. It doesn’t necessarily mean Protestants have disagreed with each other and must break communion; that doesn’t happen among Protestants any more often than it does among Catholics. Most of the time, new denominations are added to the list for this or other non-sectarian reasons. And for what it’s worth, the vast majority of Protestant denominations are so far removed from the Reformation that they are mostly ambivalent toward Catholicism.
Protest can mean different things. You mention one way in which it can be used. This was not how it was used by the Reformers. Granted, the original meaning as used by Protestant reformers is now archaic, but it wasn’t archaic at the time.
What it meant for a Protestant to “protest” was “To proclaim or make known.” And for what it’s worth, the initial reformers did their best to proclaim and make known the truth of the Gospel without being removed from Catholic fellowship and excommunicated. That happened very much against their will.
I happen to be non-denominational, and the church I grew up in didn’t break away from anyone else. It hasn’t ever split. It’s always been kind of small, but it has avoided serious dissension and we haven’t ever done anything that could be described as sectarian in nature.
For you, I suppose any refusal to be in submission to papal authority is grounds for calling someone “divisive” or “sectarian.” I disagree and I think this is as unreasonable as it is self-serving, but if that’s what you want to think, I will leave you to it.
